Many people do not take in sufficient nutrients for a nutritionally complete diet. In order to assist these people, nutritional supplements have been developed. Nutritional supplements are not intended to provide all the nutrients necessary for a nutritionally complete diet; instead they are intended to supplement the diet such that it becomes more nutritionally complete.
There are many targets for nutritional supplements; for example children, the elderly and patients suffering for dysphagia. Dysphagia, the feeling of difficulty in swallowing, is common in all age groups but is especially prevalent amongst the elderly. Typical symptoms may include drooling, a feeling that food is sticking in the throat, discomfort in the chest or throat, a feeling of a lump in the throat, and coughing or choking caused by food not passing easily to the stomach and being sucked into the lungs.
Dysphagia may be caused by many factors. For example, simple causes may be poor teeth, ill-fitting dentures, influenza, or gastroesophageal reflux. Other more serious causes include strokes, progressive neurological disorders, the presence of tracheotomy tubes, paralyzed vocal cords, tumors or surgery to the head, neck or esophageal areas.
Ordinarily, for most people, the condition clears up itself reasonably rapidly or may be easily treated by having appropriate dental work done. However, for more serious cases, the condition may not be easily remedied. In these cases, the patient often suffers weight loss and other complications of inadequate nutrition and liquid intake.
It is generally found that patients suffering from dysphagia are able to better swallow more viscous foods and drinks. Therefore it has been suggested to add viscosity increasing agents to drinks and liquid foods to assist dysphagia patients with swallowing. For example, Japanese patent application 5-38262 describes an agent which is made up of alpha-lized starch and dextrin. The agent may be added to liquid foods to thicken them without changing the color, taste and flavor of the liquid foods. Further, soluble coffee powders which provide thickened coffee beverages are available on the market under the trade name RESOURCE (Novartis Nutrition). These powders contain modified starches to provide the coffee beverage with a “honey-like” consistency.
However, there is still a need for nutritional compositions which may be more readily consumed by dysphagia patients and are of high nutritional value.
Further, for patients in general who require nutritional supplementation, taste fatigue is a common problem; especially among children and the elderly. Nutritional supplements with new and interesting organoleptic properties and appearances are constantly needed to deal with the problem. In particular, nutritional supplements which do not have a milky appearance and taste are extremely desirable. In order to meet this need, nutritional supplements in the form of fruit juices are described in European patent application 0486425 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,641,531. However, these products are not ideally suited to dysphagia patients. Further, nutritional supplements with other organoleptic properties and appearances are needed.
Therefore an object of this invention is to provide a nutritional composition which is suitable for dysphagia patients and which has a gelled consistency.